NEW DELHI, 23 October 2021, (TON): The sudden exit of the United States and its allies forces from Afghanistan has caught the Indian drug trafficking network in a highly compromising situation as New Delhi is currently trying to destroy evidence of its links to drug money.

Ignoring its disastrous impacts on Indian society and pouring of illicit money in the national kitty, India indulged in the drug trade to satisfy its greed for money.

According to an estimate, India’s illegal drug business has swelled to Rs300 billion and the seizure made roughly around 10 per cent of the trade.

The exponential increase in the size of Indian domestic drug consumption owing to cheap and uninterrupted supply can be judged by a 2019 report by the Indian union ministry of social justice and empowerment pegs opioid use in Indian at 2.6% of total drug use, thrice the global average of 0.7% the veins and windpipes of an estimated 57.8 million users worldwide.

After the Taliban ouster in 2001, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan jumped to 3,400 tonnes in just a period of two years from 180 tonnes because the Taliban had banned opium cultivation.

According to the UNODC, by 2003 the Afghan drugs were raking in $2.3 billion from growing poppies to trafficking its derivatives. Even amidst the exit of international forces from Afghanistan, the poppy production had reached astronomical levels of around 9,000 tonnes.

The drug mafia is rescuing this bountiful crop of 2020-21 from the Taliban, who ironically are being accused by India and the West for living off drug proceeds.